In today's global society, businesses often operate all day, every day to provide consumers with access to their offerings. Recent advances in technology has provided consumers with considerable flexibility in where and how they shop for products and services. For example, consumers and businesses can communicate by wired or wireless telephones (voice), websites, emails, text messages, instant messaging, faxes, and the like. Also, many consumers often employ keyword online search engines to research information regarding products and services of interest. The results of these searches typically generate listings of relevant product/service information, such as models, pricing, store locations, reviews, and vendors. Additionally, most search engine companies enable online vendors to pay for prominent placement in the search results for a particular key word.
Many larger and midsize businesses offer access over the Internet to an online website or portal regarding the services and goods that they offer, e.g., www.xyzcompany.com. Although many smaller businesses sell products and services to customers that often access information online, these small businesses typically can not afford to maintain an online presence. However, small businesses are often accessible to their customers by one or more means of communication, such as wired and/or wireless telephones, faxes, text messaging, and the like.